All Aces
by Demented Inu
Summary: Pablo shows up uninvited. Ray doesn't mind... that is, until clothes come off. Cuba/Mexico.


**1977. Havana, Cuba.**

It's late afternoon when the party ends. Raymundo waves off some of the stragglers of low-string government types and men around the neighborhood that have convened to some casual poker and gambling games with a brassy chuckle, sweeping some wads of cash and specie coins into his own pile with a box of fine cigars palmed as well.

He grins pleasantly through his haze of smoke at the cheap propped table as a nice breeze flutters in through his open front door. It ruffles his bright orange floral shirt as well as his slouched shorts, tickles his bare feet and dreadlocks, ultimately in comfort with his porch chairs littered by some wine bottles from the party-goers and the screen-wire door shut just to keep out the bugs. The one o'clock breeze hits as it always does in a warm lull, the night air humid and sleepy, smoky and fresh with the spiced-lamb and plantains he'd made for dinner tonight.

Outside, the street plays the swanky tune of jazz-mambo in a club, girls laughing in the house next to his own. Their house is newer than his own; Ray's own walls are peeling in places from the recent rainy season but still crisp in bright colors, bright and warm as the weather this year. A good year, just as it's a good cash-in tight to turn in on, he thinks, as he sighs and stretches his hands over his head.

There's a knock on the wall to announce a new arrival, and he knows who it is before the familiar voice speaks up: "Ay, you just have a party or what? And I wasn't invited?"

The boy comes over more than frequently, which Ray honestly doesn't mind, given that Pablo - the southern half of Mexico - is practically his younger brother by this point. Together, the two have discussed political policies and Latino gossip since they met, so one party-crashing certainly doesn't hurt, especially when Pablo kicks aside one of the empty wine bottles and brandishes his own bottle of tequila with a flick of the wrist.

"_Hermana_ is driving me crazy," he says, "bustling around and fretting about things up north, so I thought I'd drop by to keep away from her. What about you, _amigo_... you look cluttered... want some help picking up?"

Despite not minding, Ray still has to make a show of things, and jumps in mid-sentence in a storm of words. "-the hell you doin' just chattering in like this? Sure- had a party, and no you weren't fockin' invited 'cause I thought you had a lot on your hands. Man, don't just do that, got my screen up, at least! Respect the fockin' screen-"

He slaps his hands down on the plastic table, making it shiver just a little, and turns his head to give him a sharper look, eying the boy's swaying condition with disapproval. Not the first time the kid had wandered in piss-drunk. "Got it, _pinga_? No, you don't- lookitchou, _Jesus_- 'cause you would not believe how many drunks come a-walkin' in here to just tumble around my booze- oh, but, hey!" Hands thrown up again, he points at Pablo's stumbling stature and composure, sarcasm heavy in his gruff voice. "Lookitchou- you're here for that, 'ey? Siddown, shaddup, pay up. Why's she bustlin' 'round? I thought things were turnin' up for you guys. Dammit, Pablo, siddown, the chair's here and I'm on a roll tonight so let me give you a lickin', you drunk bum."

Gratefully and with a bout of that rare and drunken laughter, Pablo gives one of his lopsided grins and falls into one of the plastic chairs, leaning on the two back legs in perfect balance. "Things're turning up, yeah, I mean with money and things, but she's been in a fuss about Senor America and bombs and... whatever else. Just needs to calm down. Not like the _gringo_is ever gonna bomb Mexico, so she shouldn't worry."

Pablo is almost smiling as he offers Ray the bottle of tequila.

"Don't bring up that fockin' idiot here- y'think that I'm not losin' any sleep about his new God complex?" Ray snatches the bottle from him with a quick glare, his voice sharp. "I am. I just party and smoke and sit on my ass a while, which I work on tariffs and stupid trade bans... that shit-eating, hot-shot _yankee_-"

No, he understands perfectly why Maria might be nervous about it. Ray remembers being told the news, how he'd gotten the call and had imagined that grinning idiot's face in the back of his mind, beaming. What the hell does it mean for someone to have the ability to wipe out an entire nation at the push of a button, anyway?

Ray tips the bottle down to fill his iced glass, then takes a fierce sip from his concoction after shaking the bottle like he's grasping Alfred's neck in all of three seconds. Smacks his lips and winces, handing the bottle back as the burn tickles his throat. "_Dios_, you do like the bitter fires."

Pablo's smirking a little, drunk out of his mind without a doubt, but Ray just shakes his head in mild amusement and claps the cards down, flipping them to and fro between the palms of his hands, fluttering them back and forth with ease. Then he draws his thumb across them to ripple the cards and bow them, flicking five out fast and slamming them down on the table, sliding them over.

"Yours," he says with an air of authority, and does the same again after the five-second ritual. "Mine."

The boy says nothing. Whatever, since it isn't like this is anything new. Pablo's just naturally very quiet, says nothing unless he's asked to speak or unless he's in one of his talkative and feisty moods that so often get him into trouble with the other Latin American nations from down south. Ray paws down the stack in the center of the table with another customary, loud smack, kicks back in his chair, puffs his smoke, and dashes the ash of his cigar off in his old glass.

With a few wads of cash flicks out into the center of the table, he says, "Let's go. Bid up, monkey. I got these-" He adds two cigars to the pile of winnings, calculating his very good chances of getting a flush as he glances down at his five-hand. "What'cha got, kid?"

Pablo picks up his own hand and looks it over, his body swaying a little in his chair. Ray worries for him sometimes, but for now, he just thinks how easy it'll be to win over this guy. He's pretty sure Pablo can't even see straight; Pablo snorts a laugh and digs in his pockets for a few leftover pesos to toss them into the winnings.

"That's all I got," he says with a shrug, landing his chair on all fours again.

Ray laughs too, and then lets out a sigh. "Why do I play with you- you don't even know what's goin' on right now, prolly, judgin' by what you just did. A few scrappy-ass pesos, c'mon now, you bring up bombin' and then this is what's supposed to pick us up?" He eyes him again, not as angry, and scratches his dreads a moment with a small sigh. A plume of smoke columns up to the dim lamp over their table. "Depressing, Pablo, it's a fockin' sad day."

Then he smirks a little, catching how happy and carefree Pablo seems, and chuckles. "You don't even care, do you? Crazy bastard. You'd bet your fockin' foot... the numbers must be swimmin' on those damn cards."

Pablo shrugs. "It's all I got on me right now." A wicked look comes over him. "Fine. Bet somethin' else, then."

Honestly, Ray doesn't care much how drunk Pablo is as long as he stays friendly and nothing worries him. He knows Maria nags at him a lot for this sort of thing, and only slides another cigar toward the betting pot as he takes another card, eying a fairly good hand now - would earn him more "points" if it were in order, but the flush is good, and he has a three of a kind going, so he turns his eyes back over to Pablo after he draws; then decides to double-bet, pushing some more of his money in.

"Why not," he agrees. "You ain't got nothin' else to put in the bidding, 'ey?" His cards are down now, face-up to reveal the strong hand, and he settles back, hands laced and cigar in his teeth.

The other looks down at Ray's hand and then back at his own, blinking at it. Ray wonders what he's got in his hands before Pablo chuckles softly and then sighs. "Tche." It's his tell-tale noise of annoyance, but the hand drops onto the table. "I'm just lucky 's hot here anyway."

Ray blinks and starts to say something as Pablo begins to peel off his shirt. " 'ey, what're you doin'? Ain't that hot here, 's just-"

But then he stops, some of the silence hitting him from the realization that Pablo's stripping down as his compensation for having the losing hand, and another part quieting from seeing the... the scars. Stretch marks, scars over the elbows and shoulders, every inch of him covered in some sort of mark from fire, oil, stabbings, lashings, floggings, a million other things his mind can't connect to other than chanting _Spain, Spain, Spain_in the back of his head.

For a while, Ray too was a slave under Spanish rule. That's why the scars stand out to him so much, matching some of the ones on his own back. But there are other scars too, others that he has no idea of their origin- and that's much more frightening to him, worries him, reminds him of the stains in Pablo's history, and he can't help but stay shell-shocked for a moment, a hot blush frozen on his face as he stares.

He's pulled back to reality by the realization that his cigar has dropped from his mouth to the top of his thigh and it burns, so he hisses an expletive as he swats it out and slams it on the tray, looking away from the mutilated body in front of him.

"Y... Y'don't gotta take yer clothes off, Pablo- 's just... Jesus, they still ain't healed over so much, and, well, I mean, it's gettin' better, but you don't gotta do this... I'll take your pesos, you crazy-" Ray swallows, averts his eyes, blushing as he scratches a snarled piece of his dreadlocks back.

"It's fine, man," Pablo assures him as he swigs from the tequila again with a light cough. "I don't got the money. It's fine." He smirks, leans forward with a drunkenly wicked smile. "Let's go another hand. C'mon."

The cigar almost drops again when Ray hears that voice come out in a near purr, and he scrambles for it like someone fumbling for a loose bar of soap, regaining his composure as he bites his lower lip and stares at him. "You're on."

Pablo gives another laugh, but then clears his throat to cover that up, sitting back in his chair with an ease Ray has only ever seen in the younger nation. This time, Pablo barely even glances at his cards before laying them down on the table. "I'm just not very good at this game," he sighs, and begins to work open the belt on his pants-

There's a clatter when Ray stands bolt upright, the table jolting with the banged movement, and he goes red as he leans in and starts rambling desperately, "Hey, 'ey, 'ey! Whatta y'think I just said? Don't fockin' strip down- it ain't that hot! Just- 'ey, you just needa sleep, it's late, early, whatever it is... you just... you're just- crazy, you're crazy, and you gotta slee- hands off the pants, _pinga! Dios!_Don't make me come over there and-"

Swallowing, and the table lurching a little in a groan under the weight of his palms, Ray watches the other stealthily, too chicken to go over and keep the pants from coming off by physically fastening him back up... he needs more of a tease to do that, and right now his boldness only goes so far, so he pleads quietly, "Don't do it- don't. Don't."

But Pablo's grin widens and he gives him an almost challenging look, starting to slide his pants down further so that the top of those boxers show, hips lifting to help them down. "What's the matter," he purrs with slurred speech, more daring and confident than Ray's ever seen him. "You afraid or somethin'? You're older than me, c'mon now. You chicken?"

Despite himself, it feels like the room has inched up a few degrees, something, and he doesn't like this - well, he does, but it's not okay. It's not what he considers to be okay, and his Adam's apple bobs in his throat as he slowly gulps, watching those pants slide down his thighs to reveal the red cloth of boxers and the creamy brown color of skin, lighter than the skin regularly exposed to sunlight, and Ray's eyes guiltily flick back up.

Biting the inside of his cheek, he angrily - yes, angry with his own embarrassment over a friend, a good friend, possibly showing more skin, _Dios_, what an idiot to get so worked up - he pushes the table to the side with the wide sweep of his strong arm, quick as it jambles over into the wall... and he advances forward, grabs at the belt-loops to Pablo's pants, and hoists him up to his feet.

"I'm not a chicken," he hisses, grateful to see that whatever Pablo thought was so hilarious is over now, that smile gone as he looks silent and kind of scared, shrinking back with his hands up. "I'm not scared of a drunk _pinga_like you droppin' your pants. You needa get to bed."

Pablo looks up at him a bit fearfully, and cracks a small, nervous smile. "Ay, I'm not... calm the fuck down, I'm just..." Embarrassment lines the other's tone, and he mumbles out, "I'm not tired. 'm not even that drunk. Let's go another hand, c'mon..."

A sigh, and Ray looks at him in what he hopes is a sharp gaze, not with anger but with a muddled mixture of concern and self-directed frustration at letting this go so far. "You're lookin' at me like I got three sets of eyes, _estupido_. I wasn't born yesterday. I know a piss-drunk when I see one, an' it's only gettin' worse unless you turn in, but if you can-"

Pablo tries to take another swig of tequila, but misses his mouth, and it splashes all over his front with a muffled curse, so Ray holds him more carefully as the younger sways. In the next moment, they're in a much closer position, different than when they've wrangled around, or when Pablo's been on his shoulders for the harvest times, and it hits him like a brick to the face, in that second, that long second that seems to span over an age, his eyes stuck on Pablo's bright green ones.

His heart pounds hard into his ribs as he stares at him - as they stare at each other - his nerves shooting up, aware of every painful passing second as Pablo lifts his hands to rest innocently on Ray's broad chest. His gardener's fingers barely hook into the fabric of Ray's shirt and those eyes dart from Ray's eyes to his lips, then up again, so that Ray's heart threatens to choke him with how close they are, how easily Ray could lean forward and just... just kiss him right now...

Ray's grip on him tightens but in the next moment, he's swept him up, thrown him over his own broad, meaty shoulder and he walks him briskly to the bedroom. Once inside, he gives an almost careless toss and Pablo is on the bed, looking hopeful.

"I won't turn off the light," Ray promises, but pushes Pablo back into the bed, throwing the blankets over him even in the heat, and moving swiftly back out of the room. The door shuts behind him almost of his own accord and he imagines Pablo sitting in there with that look of confusion over his face, those eyes... th-those _eyes_...

He leans back against the door with a breath of air he'd forgotten to take.

His knees feel weak.

"Fockin' idiot," he grumbles to himself and moves back out into the living room.


End file.
